"I want to do this properly," I said.
She didn't flinch. Didn't look away. Just waited, watching me with those honey-colored eyes that saw too much.
"No assumptions," I continued, settling into the chair across from her. Close enough to touch if I reached out. Far enough to give her room to think. "No unspoken expectations. A real conversation about what this means. What we both need. What the boundaries are."
I watched her carefully. Cataloging the microexpressions that flickered across her face. Looking for hesitation, for fear, for any sign that I should slow down or stop entirely.
Instead, I saw something that looked like relief.
"You have a plan," she said.
Not a question. A recognition. She'd already learned to read me—to understand that I didn't approach anything without structure, without preparation, without having thought through every angle.
"I have a framework." The words came out steady, but something beneath them shook. "Something I've been . . . developing. For years."
The admission cost me. I felt it in my chest—the vulnerability of revealing how long I'd carried this, how central it was to who I was. Not a recent discovery. Not a casual interest. A defining feature of my being that I'd hidden from everyone, including my siblings.
Her eyes widened slightly. Processing.
"How many years?" she asked quietly.
"Fifteen. Since I was nineteen."
I watched her do the math. Watched her understand what that meant—that this wasn't something I'd discovered after meeting her, wasn't something I was trying on because it might fit. This was the core of me. The part I'd built everything else around.
"You've never—" She stopped. Started again. "Has anyone else seen it? This framework?"
"No."
The word hung between us. Heavy with meaning neither of us needed to spell out.
"Will you look at it with me?" I asked. "We don't have to agree to anything tonight. I just want you to understand what I'm offering. What I'm asking for."
Silence. The kind that stretches, that breathes, that holds space for decisions to take shape.
She studied my face. I let her look. Let her see whatever she needed to see—the sincerity, the fear, the barely contained hope that I was fighting to keep off my expression.
"You're nervous," she said finally. Not mocking. Observing. A note of wonder in her voice, like she hadn't known I was capable of uncertainty.
"Terrified," I admitted. "I've faced federal prosecutors with more composure than this."
The ghost of a smile crossed her face. "That's . . . actually reassuring."
"Is it?"
"It means this matters to you. That you're not just—" She gestured vaguely. "Playing a role. Going through motions. Being what you think I want you to be."
The observation landed somewhere tender. She knew about playing roles. About performing what people expected, becoming whatever would keep you safe.
"I've never been less certain of anything in my life," I said honestly. "But I've also never wanted anything more."
Her breath caught. Soft enough that I might have missed it if I hadn't been watching so carefully.
"Show me," she said.
I reached into my jacket and withdrew the portfolio. The leather was warm from being pressed against my chest, carried close to my heart.
She watched me set it on the table between us. Watched me open it with hands that stayed steady through sheer force of will.
